The other night, hubs and I went out for our (almost) weekly couple time. We debated where to go and ended up at our usual haunt. Mostly because we needed to get a new door stopper — to prevent baby J from squashing his little fingers. (Funny how parenthood replaces creativity with functionality and limits your geographical footprint sometimes.)
So there we were at the store, choosing our latest stash of child-proofing home items. Bought, bagged, checked.
Then we wandered around for a bit. And we walked by a noisy arcade, you know those noisy clangy places with bright lights from machines? Yup, those.
Hubs peered in and said, hey let’s go and play.
I looked at him with a face that said ‘serious?’
I followed him in, walked around, and he started to bang on the buttons of a nearby machine. I think he was serious.
Finally, we stopped at the basketball game machine, and he said ‘let’s play!’
Okayyy, was my trying-hard-to-be-enthusiastic response. My hands automatically floated up to my waist, and I thought, it’s just basketball, shouldn’t be that hard.
He hopped off to the cashier to exchange money for a plastic card. (They don’t use coins/chips anymore.)
With a swipe of the card, we were off. Hit the wall! Hit higher! He called out instructions like a coach.
We made it to the second round. (Hi-five.) And then the net started to move from side to side, making it harder to score.
Oh well. It was fun. Good exercise too.
We went on to play another ball game — this time we had to throw small plastic balls at a large TV screen to hit different targets. Our first mission was to hit the mosquitoes and protect a baby from being bitten. (Which was naturally hilarious, given that we’re always hunting down mozzies in our own home.)
After that, he settled into a tennis game — ahh his first love. I just sat there and cheered him on.
After he finished his tennis, I said let’s go for a drink. And we walked out into relative serenity, found a cafe and ordered. We talked and shared about life / work / friends. And it was good.
We came home and I realised that it was really good to be able to do something silly, something out-of-the-blue, something totally out of character (for me at least) and something that the other person wanted badly to do.
I don’t mean to generalise but I think guys usually prefer action and games and having fun, whilst true blue girly me prefers to sip a latte and chat life. That day we did a bit of both, and it actually turned out to be good for both of us. (Okay, granted I was a bit bored halfway through the tennis game.)
But I enjoyed it, because I saw that he enjoyed it, and it somehow had that magical, reciprocal effect.
Maybe love is really about the other person.
What do you do for date nights? I would love to hear your ideas!